CIA director: There's no need to release the 28 classified pages of the 9/11 report

U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director John Brennan takes part in a conference on national security titled
U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director John Brennan takes part in a conference on national security titled

(Thomson Reuters)
U.S. CIA Director Brennan takes part in a conference on national security titled "The Ethos and Profession of Intelligence" in Washington

There's no need to release the classified 9/11 report, and having that information in the public would be unhelpful, CIA director said on Sunday's "Meet the Press" on NBC.

CIA Director John Brennan warned that the 28 pages of the report that critics are pushing to have declassified could unfairly implicate the Saudis as the report contains "unvetted information."

"I think some people may seize upon that uncorroborated, unvetted information that was in there that was basically just a collation of this information that came out of FBI files, and to point to Saudi involvement, which I think would be very, very inaccurate," Brennan told NBC.

Brennan went on to say that he was puzzled by the push from critics to have the 28 pages released. In Brennan's view, the issue of Saudi involvement in the 9/11 attacks was further investigated in the independent 9/11 commission, which then proceeded to find no links between the Saudi government and al-Qaeda.

According to Brennan, the 28 pages are unreliable compared to the formal conclusions of the 9/11 commission as the pages contain a "combination of things that are accurate and inaccurate."

The push for the release of the 28 pages have been spearheaded by former Democratic senator Bob Graham, who had previously chaired the Senate Intelligence Committee. Graham has repeatedly insisted that the pages show high-level support and financial assistance from select Saudis to the 9/11 hijackers.

“The most important unanswered question of 9/11 is, did these 19 people conduct this very sophisticated plot alone, or were they supported?” Graham said on "Meet the Press" in April. “So who was the most likely entity to have provided them that support? And I think all the evidence points to Saudi Arabia.”

So far, the Obama administration has not publicly stated whether or not it will release the papers. However, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper reporters on April 25 that it is a realistic goal to have the papers declassified and released by June.

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